The Cuban connection : Nixon, Castro, and the mob /
William W Turner
- New York : Prometheus Books 2013
- 319 p.; ill.; 24 cm
The violent past is prologue -- The eagle has landed -- Havana syndicated -- Sidebar: Jack Ruby -- The Nixon nobody knew -- The alliance nobody knew -- Nixon's red-baiting boomerangs into Castro epiphany -- Setting up the bay of pigs and other disasters -- Major Morgan's triple play -- The beast of the Caribbean -- La Batalla de Girón -- Kennedy gets his Irish up -- The hits that missed -- Decisions, decisions: Invasion no. 2 -- The Flying Tiger and the phony rescue -- The navy that nobody knew -- The CIA's unruly stepchild -- Nixon's vendetta -- The coup that nobody knew -- Epilogue-Havana redux.
"In April 1959, Fidel Castro toured the United States at the invitation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Though he was wary, Castro entertained some hope of establishing a rapprochement with Washington. But after being snubbed by President Eisenhower and receiving a less-than-cordial reception from Vice President Richard Nixon, Castro got the strong impression that US intentions toward his new Cuban government were hostile. In The Cuban Connection, former FBI agent and investigative journalist William Weyand Turner examines the fateful meeting between Castro and Nixon and the murky connections that existed between official Washington, the CIA, and organized crime in Cuba. Based on firsthand interviews with many of the key players involved in Cuban-American relations of that era, plus thorough background research, Turner raises a host of disturbing questions. Before the ouster of the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista by Castro, why did Vice President Nixon often socialize at Havana casinos with his Cuban friend Bebe Rebozo? How was the rabid anti-Communism of the Eisenhower administration, especially its instant dislike of Castro, connected to its cozy relationship with the former mob-controlled dictatorship? How did all of this set the stage for the Bay of Pigs fiasco and, ultimately, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the JFK assassination? In a vivid narrative, The Cuban Connection provides insider information that rarely reaches the public and that many in power never wanted the public to know."--Publisher's website.